Is Pokémon GO aiming to be competitive?

Pokémon GO

Obviously you all know what Pokémon GO is, unless you have been living a life of seclusion somewhere in the mountains, with no human contact and no, well, internet(How did you get here?).

No doubt the Augmented-Reality game has taken the world by storm, and still has a ton of users. It even surpassed long time runners Twitter, Facebook as well as Pornhub on most usage. And you have probably played as well as enjoyed it too.

Pokémon GO – COMPETITIVE?

When it first released, a select few (including me) were disappointed that it was nothing like the classic Pokémon games. Sure, both types say that your main objective was collecting every single Pokémon available, but the classic games eventually made you look around to find other trainers, so you could have a battle with them. You say Pokémon GO is also the same, with respect to the Gym system? Well there is a big difference, which I will tell you.

First Off, Pokémon GO does not have direct battling, you are always just fighting an easy difficulty bot. There is no way to battle with someone directly and get the actual rush, like you could in the Nintendo console games.

Competitive Battling in Pokémon games was rarely based on CP/Level, whatever you might call it. There was more strategy, more direct conflict, and overall, a lot more fun. Pokémon GO has quite literally no strategy except checking CP, and type matchups. They did however, implement the IV(Individual Values) appraisal feature in the game, which doesn’t make sense unless they were wishing to make the game more competitive.

What are IVs? They are like skill points given to you during a presentation. They include HP, Attack & Defence. Basically, every Pokémon has different IV sets, and that’s the reason why your 1500 Vaporeon is beaten by your rival’s 1200 Vaporeon. IV points are from 0 to 15, with 15 being the best. If your Pokémon has higher IVs, it is quite obviously, a stronger Pokémon than average.

IVs also exist in the classic games, though there they are counted from 0-31 and there are HP, Attack, Defence, Special Attack, Special Defence and Speed IVs to take into account. There are also other things that affect your stats, such as EVs, nature, items, etc.

Putting Pokémon in gyms in GO is not as much about fighting, than to just show off to other trainers your progress. And the rewards, obviously. The game is true to Catching Every Single Pokémon Possible, which the other games tend to stray from. The appraisal feature, however, is a direct message that developers want this game to stay a worldwide phenomenon (it’s on the low tide now), even if it means using the old formula.

Also, appraisals make for great memes.

What do you think Niantic should do? Slowly follow the footsteps of Nintendo, or try to build around their own unique concept? Comment Below!